CHEAP IMITATION "Self titled" C60B (Zeon Light Kassett)

Zeon Light is a SERIOUSLY WEIRDO Swedish label, putting out rad ambient/drone/leftfieldfolk/electropop-anomalies and/or dancinesses for the small-batch’d masses. A quick look at their release-roster touts recordings by Oliwa (Argentina), Arc Light (USA) & Linear Bells (France), with the majority of other artists, including Cheap Imitation, being neighboring Nordic folx, like Flourescent Heights, who are ganska jätte bra, if I (and google translate) do inappropriately say so, ourselves!

So, Cheap Imitation; what a wild ride! Maybe the label of “electro-anti-pop” may suit this duet best? I didn’t see “omnichord” listed in their instrumental arsenal, but a good portion of their songs involve the expertly unapologetic (yet tasteful, mind you!) tweaking of tempo AND pulse, in tandem, which is part & parcel to the great Om’s charm. Maybe I’m a conspiracy theorist here? Anyhoo…

Cheap Imitation’s eponymous vignette of slippery ditties is a rrrad stream of conscious meditation on the boundaries between meditative-new-age mantra and ever-shifting stream-of-conscious-electro-pop posit. There are seVEREly fucked with field recordings (and Swedish moviemusic from 1937), as well as haunted drum machines, ambient guitar swells, & ghostly synths that stagger to & fro. There may be a sliiiight turn off for some with the hushed vocals that live between-the-notes (think a rreeaallyy sleepy Kim Gordon), but it rreeaallyy makes sense for them to be this way, as they avoid being a focal point, eschewing the gravity of melody in favor of texture and further movement and gelling of said warbling synthesizer loops & drum machines (& omnichord, right?!)

All in all, this is fairly spectacular and well, well worth repeated listens in a variety of environs, though it’d be a living hell for anyone, say, someone who was trying to study while I played it on the living room stereo. :/

Headphones highly recommended, but not necessary for a good time here. What a mix!

https://zeonlight.bandcamp.com/album/cheap-imitation

  --Jacob An Kittenplan

CHEAP IMITATION"Somewhere Beyond The Sea" (Cheap Recordings)

This ten track cassette offering struck me as nothing unusual as I, perhaps naively, popped it into my deck. Boy, was I in for a shock. This two- piece knows not a major chord. Mix that with drum machine, piano, clarinet, zither and pretty much anything else they could harness including field recordings and you begin to navigate the landscape here. This is not The Beach Boys...or Fun more like The Postal Service does the soundtrack for Supernatural. Now you see don't you? Don't come here for sympathy or consolation...

All that said, this is great stuff. The group avoids a major pitfall of electronica by making brief statements and moving on. You won't find lingering synth explorations or even solos for that matter. But don't be mistaken. This is hardly synth-pop. Cheap Imitation isn't that at all. This album is a fine document of a solemn perspective. Maybe one of the best overall tapes of the year. Hell, maybe one of the best albums of the year.

-- Bob Zilli